2 Samuel 6

We studied through books of the Bible here at the village chapel.

We've got extra copies.

If you didn't bring one and you'd like one to follow along, just raise your hand up real high and uh somebody will drop one off at your row, your aisle.

Um I'm gonna start with a statement or two.

We we uh talk a lot about God here, as is the habit of most churches, but what we believe about God is the most important thing about us.

Why?

Because it affects the way we see everything else in the world around us.

It affects the way we think about ourselves, the way we think about the lives of other persons, the way we think about things like work, art, music, uh, politics, recreation, everything.

And the the questions abound.

Does God exist?

There's not a unanimous consensus on this in our world.

Does God exist?

If so, what kind of God is the God who exists?

Would a real God always agree with me about everything?

And um uh the way the way we think uh about virtually any and every category of life is affected by what we think about God.

Would a real God ever make me mad?

Would a real God ever tell me no or go against our culture flow?

Would a real God do that?

If not, how can I tell the difference between my limited knowledge and God's infinite wisdom?

If not, how could I tell the difference between my foolish preferences and God's ultimate purposes?

What we believe about God is indeed the most important thing about us.

And what we think about God is at the heart of the passage that we're gonna study this morning.

We were studying 2 Samuel.

We're calling the overall study the story of an unlikely redemption, because God keeps making choices nobody else would make and uses people nobody else would use, and redeems people that most of us would probably have written off, and somebody would have written us off a long time ago, and yet he calls to us and chooses us and redeems us.

So we're looking at first uh or at 2 Samuel chapter 6 right now, and if you want to join me there, that'd be awesome.

2 Samuel 6 · chapter mention

And uh this story is a bit about the Ark of the Covenant.

Some of you have heard of the Ark of the Covenant, and uh I'm gonna read the text first, make a few comments along the way, and then we'll come back to a couple summary points, right?

So if you'll set your eyes on the page, um we're we're remember David has now been anointed uh for the third time king, and this time he's been anointed as king over all of Israel, and they're they're struggling to bring together these two kingdoms, the northern and southern kingdoms, and the northern and southern tribes.

Um in the south it was just Judah, the one tribe, but it was one of the bigger tribes, and in the north the other eleven tribes.

But so it's been a little bit of a struggle to pull them all together.

But David is now uh moved to nearer to Jerusalem there.

He's taken Jerusalem.

It's going to become, it isn't yet, but it's gonna become the center of religious life.

It's it's already become uh the center of political and societal life.

Uh we don't know how many years have passed between verse 25 of chapter 5 and verse 1 of chapter 6, but here's how verse 1 of chapter 6 begins.

David again gathered all the chosen men of Israel, 30,000.

So he's doing, he's about to do something significant.

You don't call everybody together unless there's something big going on.

David arose and went with all the people who are with him to Bele Judah, and that's another way of saying Kiriath Jerim.

Some of you know of that or have heard of that town before.

It's another name for the same town, to bring up from there the ark of God, which is called by the name, the very name of the Lord of hosts, who's enthroned above the cherubim.

Now the ark has been resting there for quite some time.

The Philistines had captured it, put it on a cart, drove it into one of the Philistine cities, set it in the temple of their god Dagon, and things didn't go well for Dagon with the Ark of the Covenant of Yahweh in that temple.

Um Dagon fell down.

The next morning they discovered Dagon, his statue had fallen down, and they propped him back up.

And then the next morning they he'd fallen down again, and his head fell off.

And so they decided to move the Ark of the Covenant around.

They moved it from city to city.

Finally, they ended up putting it in Kiraf Jerim, send it back basically toward um Israel, uh Israeli territory, and they put it on a on a cart to do that, which is interesting.

But uh, especially given what we're about to read.

But David, considering the fact that he's now uh the king of a United Kingdom or a United Kingdom, considering the fact that he's now in a new city, is seeking for a way to sort of affirm and confirm that these indeed are God's people and that they are united as God's people.

And I think he's got some good motives here.

Um, but sometimes you could do the right thing with the wrong method, and and and we'll see how that goes, right?

They place the ark of God on a new cart.

How does that sound?

It sounds familiar to what they did when the Philistines moved the cart.

They put it on a new cart that they might bring it from the house of Abinadab, which is on the hill, and that's down in Kariath Jarim, or in uh Bali, Judah.

Um, and Uzzah and Ahio, the sons of Abinadab, were leading the new cart.

So they're walking alongside of it, and uh the oxen are pulling the cart, the ark is on the cart.

They brought it with the ark of God from the house of Abinadab, which was on the hill, and Ahio was walking ahead of the ark, so evidently Uzzah was walking a little on the side of it or alongside of it or something.

Meanwhile, David and all the house of Israel were celebrating before the Lord with all kinds of instruments made of fur wood and and with lyres and harps and tambourines, castanets and cymbals.

You know, they're out there just blessed be the name of the Lord.

And they're moving along with the cart and the ark, and they're taking it back to Jerusalem.

It's just a festive feeling sort of day.

Don't know how far they've gone, but all of a sudden things don't go the way that they would like them to.

Um, when they came to the threshing floor of Nakon, Uzzah reached out toward the ark of God and took hold of it.

For the oxen nearly upset it.

So evidently, uh not a smooth paved road.

Uh, evidently the cart hits a bump, and it looks like it's gonna be unsettled in some way.

And Uzzah reaches out and took a hold of it.

Um uh any Jewish person that knows their Old Testament would be remarkably surprised at that.

Um, but the oxen had nearly upset it.

The anger of the Lord burned against Uzzah, and God struck him down there for his irreverence, and he died there by the ark of God.

Not sure how loud he screamed, not sure what it looked like.

Remember, there's thirty thousand people marching alongside of David or behind or whatever, and then there's whoever else may have been collected along the way.

It's a big deal.

There's a lot going on here.

Um and then this man dies.

Does he just drop quietly or does he scream?

What happens?

Does everyone catch their breath when they see the ark kind of jostling around inside of the uh inside of that cart?

Well, David became angry because of the Lord's outburst against Uzzah.

And that place today is called Perez, which means outbreak, outbreak of God breaking out against Uzzah to this day.

Okay?

Um so David was afraid of the Lord that day.

So there's the fear of the Lord that comes back into play.

And he said, How can the ark of the Lord come to me?

In other words, if this is what's going to happen, somebody's gonna die every time we try to move the ark like this.

Uh how how are we gonna how are we gonna accomplish this?

David was unwilling to move the ark of the Lord into the city of David with him.

But David took it aside to the house of Obed-Edom, the servant of Edom, the Gittite, whether he's uh there are a couple different uh Obed Edoms mentioned later in uh the book of 1 Chronicles, and whether he's the same one there or not, I'm not really sure.

I think he probably is, uh, because the one there is spoken of as being blessed by God, and that's what happens here.

Um, the ark of the Lord remained in the house of Obed Edom, the Gittite, for three months, and the Lord blessed Obed-Edom and all his household.

And it was told to King David, saying, The Lord has blessed the house of Obed Edom, and all that belongs to him on account of the ark of God.

Remember, David's last experience with the ark of God was that somebody died.

But now, it's just in great contrast, as it sits in the house of Obed Edom, it seems like God has been blessing the house of Obed Edom.

And interestingly, when you, if your memory goes back further to 1 Samuel, you remember that when the Philistines stole it, and I just referenced this a minute ago with Dagon, they couldn't get rid of it fast enough because it seemed to have the ark was to be cursed in a way.

And so there, what what's happening here with the ark?

And what's happening with that big box that that represented the presence of God, the power of God, the provision of God, all of that.

And so now there's this rumor that for three months, or this this story's been brought to David, that Obed Edom and his house had been blessed.

And so he's gonna, David went off and brought the ark of God from the house of Obed Edom into the city of David with gladness.

Verse 13.

And so it was that when the bearers of the ark of the Lord, and notice now what's happening, when they had gone six paces, he sacrificed an ox and a fatling, when the bearers of the ark, not when the ark gets placed on a cart, but when those who are bearing it, carrying it, as prescribed in the book of Numbers by God.

The method of transportation for the ark of God was never meant to be on a cart.

It was always meant to be a burden that the Levites or the Kohathites who were a subgroup of the Levites would carry it.

And so here what happens is it's being carried.

And along the way, David is filled with gladness.

And when they'd gone six paces, he stops and offers a sacrifice.

Interesting.

We haven't heard in this chapter yet anything of him inquiring of the Lord, as we have heard in the previous chapters, especially in the first move.

Seems like David thought the only time you inquired of the Lord was when you were getting ready to go on a military move.

When you were under some kind of tension and pressure.

And perhaps that's one of the 60,000-foot view lessons for us.

We inquire of the Lord all the time.

Especially when the Lord's already spoken, as he has in the book of Numbers, what we would call the book of Numbers, and the ancient Jews would have had access to that, and they would know how God had instructed them to transport the cart.

So David and all the house of Israel, they were bringing up this uh ark for the second time.

This time it's going well.

They've gone six paces, and he stops and offers a sacrifice or has that done.

David was dancing before the Lord with all his might, so evidently he was not a Southern Baptist.

Or maybe he was, and he just was bold about it.

You know, I love my Southern Baptist brothers.

I got some great brothers who are great uh brothers in Christ who are Southern Baptist pastors.

But I grew up in a Baptist church, and uh where they always used to say, don't drink, don't dance, don't smoke, don't chew, don't go with girls.

It does.

You know, that that was the that was a sort of list of things you don't do, and we were known more for tapping the brakes than we were for rolling down the window and sticking our head out the car and pushing the gas pudding and having having uh a bit more fun.

It seemed like it was meant to be one of those kind of times where you were around God, you were always supposed to make me somber and always meant to check your emotions at the door and all of that instead of uh dancing.

Here's David dancing before the Lord, and it's interesting that it says before the Lord with all his might, which means, man, that dude is twirling.

I mean, he's jumping, he's leaping, he's he's not frozen chosen here.

This is him giving it his all, okay?

And uh David was wearing a linen ephod.

That would have been like a uh uh a garment that didn't have sleeves, it was sort of sort of like a vest.

Uh some of them, it seems, had lower lower parts to them as well, some of them not so much.

Um there was the priestly ephod as well.

It was very ornate.

Um is that what he's wearing here now?

I don't know.

It's not really said.

He's wearing a linen ephod, though.

David and all the house of Israel were bringing up the Ark of the Lord with shouting and the sound of the trumpet.

So now they got two of your favorite instruments, this the tambourine and the trumpet all together.

Isn't that great?

You guys love that, don't you?

I can tell.

Yeah.

And um, and there's but there's all this effusive worship of God going on.

It's bold and it's lots of shouting and all that.

And it came about as the Ark of the Lord came into the city of David that Michal, the daughter of Saul.

It's interesting, it doesn't say Michal, the wife of David.

She's actually identified as the daughter of Saul here.

Kind of tells us there's trouble in the home, you know.

Uh he's gotten multiple wives.

We already know that.

He's got multiple concubines, multiple wives.

But remember when uh they wanted to anoint him king of all of Israel, he said to uh Abner that Ishbishith would have to bring Michal back to him because originally Michal, the daughter of Saul, had been uh had been in love with David and they had married.

But then Saul took Michal away from David and gave her to a guy named Paltial, and we read about this already.

And that when years later, when years later David is going to be a part of the king over the United Kingdom, he demands to have Michal back.

And we hear about Paltial crying out as as as Michal is literally dragged away from the guy who had become her husband, and and whom they may have borne children with, and they're being ripped apart in a sense to write an old wrong, but at the same time, you kind of wonder is you know, when you hear this, when you read this, when you see the way she responds to David in this particular case, it seems like there's tension, a great deal of tension in the room.

And when she um is there and looks out the window and saw King David leaping and dancing before the Lord, here's what happened.

She despised him in her heart.

I've got the feeling that also showed up on her face.

I can see her literally going downstairs, out the window, downstairs, marching out, and here's what she does.

She they brought the ark of the Lord, set in its place inside the tent, which David had pitched for it, and David offered burnt offerings and peace offerings before the Lord.

When David had finished offering the burnt offering and the peace offering, he blessed the people in the name of the Lord of hosts.

So there's a quite a ceremony welcoming the ark into Jerusalem there and before the people, and lots of celebrating, lots of David offering a blessing on the people, all of that.

And when he had finished doing all that, uh, he distributed to all of the people, to the multitude of Israel, both to men and to women, a cake of bread, and one of dates and one of raisins to each one.

Then all the people departed, each to their house.

I mean, this is a big time, it's a festive time.

It's people are high-fiving, people are dancing, people are excited.

I don't know if they had five back then.

They might have, but they certainly were excited.

But, and here's the contrast, verse 20.

When David returned to bless his household, his own household, Michal, the daughter of Saul, is how she's mentioned here as well, came out to meet David and said, How that king of Israel distinguished himself today.

He uncovered himself today in the eyes of his servants' maids, as one of the foolish ones shamelessly uncovers himself.

So evidently his dancing and all that sort of thing, she is making the accusation that he exposed himself in some way with all of his dancing around with the ephod and all that sort of thing on, and that it was uh it was an offense to her, and she's disdaining him.

Did he in fact do that or not?

I don't know, but that is the accusation that's made.

Um David said to me call, it was before the Lord who chose me.

And hey, listen, um he's not blameless here.

The way he says this, it sounds to me like he's getting right back up on her grill, you know, she gets up in his grill, he's getting right back up on her grill.

And uh it was before the Lord who chose me above your father and above all his house.

Remember, she's Michal, the daughter of Saul.

And now he's using that in the argument back at her, all right?

Who to appoint me ruler of the people of the Lord over Israel.

Therefore I will celebrate before the Lord.

Have you ever used God in any of your arguments with other people?

Anybody?

Raise your hand if you spouses you have.

Well, the Lord wouldn't want me to, you know, that kind of thing.

And I'm this, I'm not sure.

I mean, we'll have to wait till we all get home to figure some of this out.

What were the motives and how clear are the details?

Uh but we can see ourselves making a lot of conclusions or drawing a lot of conclusions when we read what we read here.

Some of the conclusions will be warranted, others probably not.

We might be misled based on our own sort of filters.

He says, I will be more lightly esteemed than this and will be humble in my own eyes.

Listen, if you're humble in your own eyes, we got a problem.

Okay, if you're humble and you know it, don't say amen.

Because you're not really humble if you know it.

This is one of those elusive things, these slippery things.

Uh yes, you're to desire to be humble.

Yes, we are to value being humble.

But if you think you're humble, you're probably not.

If you think you're not proud, you probably are.

So it works against us in those ways.

But he goes, I'll be humble in my own eyes, but when the maids of whom you've spoken with them, I will be distinguished.

And uh Michal, the daughter of Saul, had no child to the day of her death.

And that's just the closing of this chapter as the chapter breaks, added much later, as most of you know, storyline continues on, but uh makes a chapter break because there seems to be an impact on her.

Whether that impact is a move of God to close her womb, or whether that impact is a move of David to not go into her room, I don't know.

I couldn't tell you.

I just know that she had no children, and the tension that we feel between he, uh David, and Michal is real.

And if you have tension in your family once in a while, or in your marriage once in a while, the Bible is not shy about saying, look, this is the kind of stuff that happens when people try to get close and people try to draw near to one another.

People who are sinful people, including King David, including Michal, uh, often will find their sinfulness bumping up against one another and difficult.

Uh some difficult tension like that will happen.

Well, this is a difficult story.

And if we're truly honest about it, a surface reading of it will likely offend some modern minds, maybe yours today.

Doesn't God seem to treat Uzzah a little harshly after all Uzzah was just trying to keep the Ark from falling into the dirt, right?

How are we to make sense of what God was doing here?

Can this kind of God be trusted to be good?

That's a good question.

Or could there be something of infinitely greater importance than our understanding of good being said here?

And what about the tension with Michael and David?

What's the significance of mentioning that here?

Well, I think we have to tread carefully.

I think it's important for us too when we try seek to interpret passages like this and understand them and apply them to our own eyes, because uh what we believe about God is the most important thing about us.

It does affect the way we view ourselves, our relationships with others, and if you're married, your your relationship with your spouse.

Uh if you're not married, your relationship with your friends, your relationship at work for all of those who work.

Neighborhood, uh your relationship with your family, your parents, your your children, whatever it might be.

So up on the screen, you see a model or a rendition of the Ark of the Covenant.

Uh most people are probably actually more familiar with it as a plot device in the 1981 adventure film Raiders of the Lost Ark, which depicts it being found by Indiana Jones in the Egyptian city of Tanis in 1936.

It shows up in the subsequent movies that are released in 1989, 19, or in 2008 as well.

But the actual Ark of the Covenant, or the Ark of the Testimony, as it's variously called, was something God had commanded Moses to build more than 400 years before the time of David.

It was an acacia wood box.

The word ark means box or chest, uh, that was completely covered with gold and had an ornate gold lid on top, which was known as the mercy seat.

The ark was about three feet nine by two feet three and about two feet three high.

Four rings of gold.

I think you can kind of see that the uh are on the corners and the poles that they were to carry it with, uh, run through those rings and were to be left in there.

And men from the tribe of Levi were to be the ones who would carry it.

The ark contained three things two tablets of God's law that Moses had been uh given and he brought down from Mount Sinai.

Uh some know this as the Ten Commandments, a jar containing some manna that God had fed the children of Israel as they journeyed through the wilderness, and then also Aaron's rod that had miraculously budded, as it wasn't connected to any roots and wasn't wasn't a plant in a pot or a plant in the ground, but it had budded as God uh instructed Aaron to use.

Use it for a variety of different miracles, and it reflected uh uh each of these reflects something of God.

Um Aaron's rod, certainly the power of God in performing the kinds of miracles that he used that rod, Aaron used that rod to uh perform.

Uh the tablets, uh, the word of God, the promises of God.

Um, and then the manna, the provision of God.

And so you had all of that in this ark that represented the presence of God.

And on top of it, those cherubim with their wings folded forward facing one another, that place that's uh the place where where God communicated to Moses right from that top where the mercy seat is called, what the mercy seat is called, reminding us of God's love to show mercy to sinners, his eagerness to show mercy to sinners.

Not about you, but I'm thrilled by all of that.

I want his presence in my life, I want his power in my life, I want his provision in my life, so do you, I would imagine.

And I definitely need his mercy in my life.

Um, so what are we reminded of here?

At least a few things, the powerful presence of the Lord.

David desires to bring the ark to the newly established central city of political and national life, Jerusalem.

There, the symbol of God's abiding presence, God's provision, God's power, there, if it's located there, it will remind the people of God over and over and over and over again about God's faithfulness, God's power, God's presence among them, God's desire to live among his people.

It will shape and influence the way that this budding nation, Israel, as it relocates to this new city for its sort of center of religious activity, will live, it'll shape the way they live out their lives and the way they think about God.

So to desire the presence of the Lord is a good thing, this is true, but do we even realize what we're asking for?

I think this is important in our day and time, when God has been trivialized and marginalized, and he's sort of seen as the G-man in the sky and our big God buddy, our cosmic concierge, as I often say.

When God is seen that way, is that perhaps one of the reasons why we find chapter 6 so shocking?

We are just not used to that kind of God.

We've domesticated him to the level where this seems incredibly shocking to us.

Are we just wanting the warm, fuzzy feelings of spirituality on our own terms?

Was David and were the people of Israel really interested in God's presence, or were they just interested in the trophy of religious symbolism?

I don't know.

But I think it's a fair enough question to ask.

These questions rise as one tries to figure out what happened after the first attempt to move the ark ended the way it did.

And the second effort, which was completely different, went completely different and had a different outcome.

What's the difference?

What we believe about God is the most important thing about us, and to desire the presence of the Lord is always a good thing.

But I think we need to consider the weightiness of what we're asking when we desire the Lord's presence.

Alan Redpath says to desire the presence of the Lord is always a good thing, but I'm confident our desire is not always accompanied by an understanding of the significance of his presence with us.

We want God's presence very much, don't we?

But we like to hitch his presence to some of our new carts.

So often we put forth our hands, but not our hearts.

We put forth our hands to the work of the Lord, but somehow our hearts have never really gotten under the burden of the Lord and begun like the Levites to carry it.

The powerful presence of the Lord must not be misunderstood or underestimated.

The Almighty and Majestic God of all creation will not be trinketized.

I know that's probably not really a word, but it is this morning.

He won't be trinketized, he won't be trivialized.

The Almighty, majestic God of all creation, if you've experienced His presence before, like David, you know that his presence leads to peace and joy, like it did at the end of this chapter, but you also know sometimes you go through fear and trembling.

If it's the real God.

If it's just a trinketized God, if it's just a God of your own imagination and your own making, it'll most likely want everything you want, like everything you like, and never pull back on the other side of the rope.

But if you are talking about the real God who's really there, I think that's what we're all really hungering for.

I actually think that's true of you, even if you find yourself still resistant to the message of this particular chapter and the method of God in this particular chapter.

I actually think you still want, ultimately, you still hunger for, ultimately, the real God in your life.

Because he's the one that made you, and he's the one that put that want inside of you, that desire for him.

Sometimes we're chronically more hungry than we would admit.

And we attempt to satisfy our hunger for God, we satisfy that attempt to satisfy with finite things.

But because God's put infinity or eternity in our hearts, we're chronically dissatisfied because none of these things that are finite satisfy us.

None of these things that are temporal satisfy us.

Have you been haunted by the wonder of God's presence?

Perhaps you know what it's like to long for Him to see and experience the nearness of His presence, the awesomeness of His glory, the brilliance of His majesty and beauty.

Are you longing for that?

Or are you just longing for the box or the cart?

Or to have God on your own terms, like the Philistines did when they carried the ark on the cart.

Like David, we've got to remember how powerful God's presence can be among us.

Powerful to change us, powerful to transform us.

And yes, that same power enables him to be powerful enough to save us and redeem us.

See, when we trivialize God, we do so to our own demise, if you will.

Secondly, not only the powerful presence of the Lord, but I think we're reminded here of the untouchable holiness of the Lord.

If God is awesome because he's powerful, God is no less awesome because of his holiness.

And I think, again, in our day and time, we've lost sight of that.

Yes, God is love.

But love is not all that God is.

God is also holy, we're told in the Bible.

We're told that over and over again.

We will never draw close to God's true presence until we recognize God's holiness.

If the God you're drawing near to is just a warm, fuzzy guru God, a love you and endorse you in every way deity, then you aren't really drawing near to the God of the Bible.

And neither am I, if I think that.

We can approach and draw near to every idol and every God of our self-centered, finite, limited imagination, but we can only approach the white hot holiness of the true and living God on God's own terms.

That's important for us to be reminded of.

We dare not approach thinking we deserve to draw near.

How dare he do what he did to Uzzah?

We dare not think that.

The Bible's actually replete with examples where people attempt to lie or fool and mix that with their worship.

And it's not just Old Testament.

Don't just think, oh, that's just the Old Testament.

No.

Acts chapter 5, folks, Ananias and Sapphira.

Acts 5 · chapter mention

And I don't know about you, but every now and then I kind of wake up to the fact that I'll do something, and the Holy Spirit will prick my heart and tell me that wasn't right, or I was dismissive of God, or abused his name, or misused his name, and all of a sudden the thought will roll across the little, you know, crawl line in my back of my brain, and it'll say, remember, he has killed for less.

Okay, and I'm I'm not this morning, please understand this.

I'm not merely trying to scare you at all, nor am I trying to shame anyone.

I say that about myself.

Why?

Because it reminds me of the powerful presence of God and the white hot, untouchable holiness of God.

And I need to understand who He is.

Because the most important thing about me is what I think about God.

And it affects the way I view myself, the way I view my relationships, the way I view my work, the way I view creativity, the way I view everything, literally.

And it's important that we have a right-headed view of who God is.

R.C.

Sprohl, theologian, guy who some people would say, you know, definitely had lots of systematics all figured out and all this right.

Great thinker, wonderful guy.

But look at this humble moment, this moment where the holiness of God overwhelmed him.

I'm sure that the reason I have a deep hunger to learn of the holiness of God is precisely because I am not holy.

I'm a profane man, a man who spends more time out of the temple than in it.

But I've had just enough of a taste of the majesty of God to want more.

I know what it means to be a forgiven man and what it means to be sent on a mission.

My soul cries for more.

My soul needs more.

And I suggest to you that that describes all of us.

If we would get honest and just stop and think about the God who is there for a moment or two.

So we have the powerful presence of God in this chapter.

We have the untouchable holiness in this chapter.

We're reminded of both, and that's good for us.

But we're also reminded of the restored fear of the Lord.

After the first attempt to bring the Ark to Jerusalem failed, David was both angry and fearful with God.

Does that ever happen to you?

Do you ever get angry with God?

Do you ever find yourself trembling in God's presence?

I have to be honest, that's happened to me before.

I I don't like the way he does things sometimes.

Are you are you is anybody out there feeling this?

I don't like the timing with which he does things sometimes.

And I can't tell you how many times.

I mean, this is an innumerable number of times.

Months later, weeks later, days later, in this case, three months later in this chapter, three months later.

Okay.

I all of a sudden look back and go, ah, now I get it.

Why?

Because I didn't know what God knew in that moment.

I just didn't know.

I didn't see it from all angles like God does.

I didn't know what else was going on.

I didn't know else who else would be affected or impacted by that thing that I so desperately wanted to happen or to not happen.

And and sometimes that stuff is really negative stuff.

And as a pastor, I see with people all the time that have been through some suffering, some event, some loss.

And on the other side of it, as horrible, as dark, as despairing as it was, on the other side of it, they look back and they go, Oh gosh, I just can't believe I didn't see this.

But God showed me this, and then God began to move in my life and transformed me.

And it it still was a horrible experience.

But God transformed me in and through the whole thing.

In that three months, what did David do?

I'm not really sure.

He left, he dropped the ark, which I would have done too, by the way.

Drop it off at you, see a guy named Obed Edom, give it to him, okay?

So you drop it off at his house, and you go back to the city of David, which is exactly what he did.

And the music kind of went from, you know, blessed be the name of the Lord to, you know, and they're crawling back to Jerusalem, right?

And for three months, what is David doing?

I'll I don't know this, it doesn't say this, but here's what we know of David.

He had a habit of inquiring of the Lord.

And I'll bet for three months he was inquiring of the Lord and searching the scriptures, scriptures.

And I'm gonna bet that he found in the book of Numbers the instructions for transporting the ark that represented the presence, the power, and the provision of God.

And I bet when he read that, he went, Oh, Ozzah, I'm so sorry, Uzzah.

I should have been the leader that knew this.

I should have been the one that led us in the right way, and I didn't.

And I bet then he goes back because, and you see it in 1 Chronicles, it's reported there, it's the parallel passage to the one we just read.

Chronicles is a is a uh a recounting, a parallel recounting, if you will, where David recounts that uh that that from earlier scriptures, Numbers, the book of Numbers, no one is to carry the ark of God but the Levites, for the Lord chose them to carry the ark of God and to minister to him for now, for for forever, rather.

And then in verses 13 to 15, because you didn't carry it at the first, the Lord our God made an outburst on us, for we did not seek him according to the ordinance.

So the priests and the Levites consecrated themselves to bring up the ark of the Lord, God of Israel.

The sons of Levite, of the Levites carried the ark of God on their shoulders with the poles thereon, as Moses had commanded, according to the word of the.

You see, in the Book of Chronicles, it literally explains what went wrong as we read 2 Samuel chapter 6.

2 Samuel 6 · chapter mention

So you need to read your Bibles.

We all need to read our Bibles.

And if we have questions, we need to cross, you know, check, cross-reference, triangulate, and figure out.

Maybe the answer just is there, it's just waiting for us.

What was wrong here is that God had said, don't carry it this way, do carry it this way.

And if we're gonna come to God, we've got to come to God on God's terms, not on our own terms.

Not forcing him to ride in our new cart as the Philistines did.

And before all of the people, David would have looked like a Philistine, using Philistine methods.

Instead, we're gonna hearken back to God's original design, God's original commands for us, and carry it the way that God told us to.

In our own culture and time, which is marked and driven by flippancy and cynicism, we've reduced everything, including everything we should hold sacred, to controllable preferences and options.

Do I need to say that again?

Maybe I should, for myself.

In our own culture and time, which is marked and driven by flippancy and cynicism, we've reduced everything, including everything we should hold sacred, to controllable preferences and options.

And by the way, not controllable by God, but controllable by us.

Not God's preferences, but our preferences.

That's why I'm saying this.

And we've done this to our own demise because we were designed and created for wonder, but because we trifle with God and trivialize everything sacred, we've also lost sight of wonder.

And why then is it any wonder that we wonder why life seems so meaningless and so without purpose?

We've made it so by diminishing the one thing, the one person who can give our lives meaning.

God Himself.

We would do well to recover a healthy fear of the Lord.

We would do well to stop trivializing God's presence and think he won't care whether or not our heart is with him.

We need to draw near and bow down before the Lord, not just draw near with our hands to work.

That's wonderful.

I love it that people will step up and serve.

I love it that people want to be engaged with the culture.

And I love our Second Saturday's Savior Service.

I love all that stuff.

But if your heart isn't in it, you're just merely doing external stuff.

Even you can serve here.

I can preach right here with just an external sort of a disposition of heart and never really be dialed in with God Himself.

Um, His presence at work in me.

There's no substitute for faith being worked out in informed obedience, but there's also no substitute for us actually living our lives in the presence of God, with the power of God at work in the people of God.

When the right fear of the Lord takes possession of our hearts, Carl Bart said deliverance to the captives, we are both lost in amazement and struck by awe, even terror, for we discover that God, since the beginning of time, has not hated or threatened you and me, but he's loved and chosen us.

He's invited us to draw near.

That's why the ark was there in the first place, because God wanted to give us a symbol of his presence among us.

That's why the tabernacle existed.

It was the dwelling place of God among his people.

And it became the temple, a more permanent dwelling place.

And then Jesus came and fulfilled all of those symbols by himself being the Son of God come to live among us.

Emmanuel, God with us, and made it possible for sinners like me, who would have steadied the ark with my hand, to not take the hit of God's wrath.

Why?

Because Jesus took it for me.

Foolish though I may be, over and over again, rebellious, impertinent, shaking my fist, angry at God like David was originally.

But yet, three months later, David, trembling, humbled, moved to the method of obedience.

This time they bring the ark the way God prescribed them to bring the ark.

And there's much dancing, and there's much singing, and it's awesome, and the presence of the Lord is going to be there, and the temple's going to be built by his son Solomon.

It's all good, except there is a naysayer.

There's always naysayers, by the way.

Some of you who experience naysayers.

I've been a naysayer before.

Don't be a naysayer.

You know?

Was Michal wrong in everything?

Probably not.

Was she a victim in some ways?

Probably so.

But in this particular moment, when people are worshiping God, when people are delighting in God, when people are delighting in God's presence among us, perhaps timing could have been a little bit, or method of her correction of her husband.

Might have been a little bit different.

It might have worked better a little bit differently.

The greatness of God, Tozer says, rouses fear within us.

But his goodness encourages us not to be afraid of him.

To fear and not be afraid.

That's the paradox of faith.

My friends, if you don't like paradox, I assure you, you will not like the Christian faith.

It's filled with paradox.

That's why we call this study the study of an uh the story of unlikely redemption.

It's paradoxical.

Wait a minute.

Wait a minute, those why those are the ones you're going to choose.

Wait a minute, I don't get this.

It seems like a contradiction.

Holy and righteous and powerful God demanding that we follow the law, demanding with precision that we do things his way.

And yet here he comes with this unlikely redemption and offers it ultimately in the personal work of Jesus.

So the people like me that would study the art, people like me that would do it my own way, people like me that would use a cart.

What's the easiest way to do this?

How do we get that thing up there fast to Jerusalem?

You know, it all makes sense.

It's reasonable, it's rational, right?

And if you're sort of given to the altar of rational ism, nothing wrong with being rational, I think the Christian faith is quite rational, but it can't be reduced to rationalism.

And that's the big difference.

The greatness of God should cause all of us, I think, to experience this paradoxical uh combination of both joy and trembling.

And so I'll close with the inexpressible joy of the Lord is point number four.

And we've got to uh jump right to this quote by Lewis, which I think is so important.

What we, I think, a lot of times look for is this, you know, this impersonal God.

Uh Lewis says, Well and good, a subjective God of beauty, truth and goodness inside our own heads, better still, a formless life force surging through us, a vast power which we can tap, best of all.

But God himself alive, pulling at the other end of the cord, perhaps approaching at an infinite speed, the hunter, the king, husband, that's quite another matter.

There comes a moment when the children who have been playing at burglars hush suddenly.

Was that a real footstep in the hall?

There comes a moment when people who have been dabbling in religion, man's search for God, suddenly draw back.

Supposingly, or supposing we really found him.

We never meant for it to come to that.

We're still, supposing he has found us.

There's your paradox.

Yeah, he's found you, even though you think you might have been looking for him on a search for him.

The inexpressible joy of the Lord.

Should you sing?

Yeah, I think it's the most often repeated positive command.

Do not fear is the most often repeated command in the Bible, but sing is the most often repeated positive command in the Bible.

You should sing.

Should you shout and dance?

I'd even go so far as to say you ought to march once in a while.

And maybe shake a tambourine.

Just once.

Oh, we got that got applause.

Okay.

I think I heard some applause from Hillsborough Village on that one, too.

Yeah.

They want to know what this is all about.

About.

So yeah.

Worship should be us delighting in God's unrivaled worth.

Worthiness.

Worship comes from the old English word worth ship.

Worth ship.

Weighty.

God is waiting.

He has worth.

And it's it's completely unrivaled, unmatched.

His matchless beauty.

Have we worshiped him for that and his majestic glory?

Responding like this, delighting in God is precisely, I think, what we were created to do.

It's the answer to the question: what's the meaning of life?

What's our ultimate purpose in life?

Or as the Westminster shorter catechism has it, what is the chief end of mankind?

To glorify God and enjoy him forever.

And so that's what you and I were designed to do.

And given the messiness of chapter 6, at least we can walk away with that.

That God, his presence is powerful, his holiness is untouchable.

That we should recover a healthy fear of the Lord again, even though we've lost sight of it in our day and time.

But that this will all lead us to an inexpressible, inexhaustible joy.

The joy of the Lord.

What about offering a sacrifice of some kind like David did here when they finally got it right?

They went six steps, and David says, Stop, and that's on the second time to deliver the, to bring the ark up to Jerusalem.

He goes, Stop, six steps in.

They're all wondering with their other foot up in the air, about to take the seventh step, is somebody dead again?

And he goes, Stop! And he offers a sacrifice.

What about us doing that?

What about our worship being not just what do I get out of it?

How does the speaker entertain me or how does the music entertain me?

But how do I become a host and not just a guest at church?

How do I give back?

How do I participate?

Join the community.

And David offered, after six steps, a sacrifice.

Something costly.

They gave something up and they offered it to the Lord just because they love him, just because they want to honor him.

Be prepared, though.

Like I say, there always be naysayers.

They can be discouraging.

Had David gone too far, had he exposed himself or whatever.

I don't know.

I wasn't there.

But that's not the point of the whole thing, is it?

It's possible that in the messiness of David's world, demanding to get Michal back, tearing apart her marriage to Paltiel, was the precursor to him wanting to take someone else's wife, which we'll read about later.

But I think, as Lewis has it here, this whole idea of God really pulling back on the rope, of God really being one who can speak.

All of that, I think that's so important for us.

Close with this Eugene Peterson quote: God will not be put or kept in a box, whether the box is constructed of crafted wood or human stone or brilliant ideas, or fine feelings.

We do not take care of God.

God takes care of us.

Listen, God is on our side, but he's not in our pocket.

Amen?

Amen.

Let's close in prayer.

Lord, thank you that you are who you are.

Help us not try to recreate you in our image, but help us, Lord, to see ourselves as created in your image.

And maybe even more importantly, help us to try to see our neighbors as created in your image as well.

Even our neighbors that don't believe what we believe, even our neighbors that don't look like we look or live the way we think they ought to live.

Help us, Lord, to see sinners just like we are.

Help us to see sinners the way you see sinners, as ones you desire, you're eager to forgive, to rescue, to redeem.

So much so that you came in the personal work of Christ.

So that when I blow it, when we blow it, when our neighbors blow it, there is grace and mercy on offer to all who repent and believe.

Give us the faith that leads to repentance.

Grant us that gift, Lord, that we might turn to you and love you with our whole hearts.

In Jesus' name we pray.

Amen and amen.